So Close to Home

by Galen Surlak-Ramsey

  I smiled, genuinely, and then even more so when I couldn’t resist the tease. “Eh. I guess. I mean, you’re no three-meter space kitty. I guess you’ll have to do for now.”

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” I replied. I let the conversation drop for a few moments as we hurried through the corridor as fast as we dared. Along the way, we found signs that directed us to IL-965, but those signs weren’t enough to distract my imagination. Because of that, my thoughts quickly filled the void with images of the monster from the warehouse.

  “Any chance you see a light switch?” I asked.

  “Chance? Yes,” he said. “Do I? No.”

  “Could we talk about something then to keep me semi-sane.”

  “I think we’d best stay focused and quiet.”

  I sucked in a breath to try and steel my nerves, but that didn’t help. My knees felt weak, and my hands couldn’t find a comfortable grip on my gun. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said after a moment. “Let’s face it. I’m no space marine.”

  Jack chuckled. “Okay, well, what do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know,” I said after checking behind us for the umpteenth time. “Something. Anything.”

  “I see…So, Dakota…do you come here often?”

  I laughed. Hard. “No, but I did have a smashingly great time at a Progenitor museum not long ago.”

  “The Museum of Natural Time?”

  I nodded. “That’s the one. Ever been?”

  “Love that place. Heard it went under.”

  “Something about a rat infestation.”

  “That does tend to drive off guests,” he replied. “The reactor meltdown probably didn’t help anything either. I mean, you can’t charge full price with rads off the chart and expect people to come.”

  We paused our chitchat at a T-junction. A nearby sign directed us left, and thus we quickly went that way.

  “New question,” Jack said. “Who’s your childhood hero?”

  “Who’s yours?”

  “Robin Hood,” he replied.

  I grinned. “Funny, you never struck me as the type to rob from the rich and give to the poor.”

  He waited a moment for us to pass through and sweep clear another doorway before replying. “I am if you consider the rich as old dead people who have no use for their buried treasure, and I’m simply giving back to the poor.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said. “Somehow I doubt you donate your finds to charity.”

  “I never said to charity,” he said, laughing. “I said to the poor, and compared to many, I’m quite poor.”

  “Touché.”

  “Your turn.”

  “Sarah Dekker,” I answered without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Who?”

  “Sarah Dekker?” I paused when I realized that the woman had been born a couple of hundred years after Jack had gone missing. “Oh, never mind. She’s just one of the most famous and brave explorers that humanity has ever produced. I was kind of obsessed as a kid with her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “What didn’t she do?” I said with a laugh. “First person to walk from the Padatane desert to the Gelgori ocean, and the first woman to shoot her craft between orbiting binary stars.”

  Jack nodded, and his voice filled with respect. “Impressive. I guess you liking her makes sense, being a thrill seeker and all.”

  “The thrill-seeking part is a bonus, as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “What she’s most famous for is being the one who discovered an ancient Ontore derelict ship in the middle of the Cigni dust cloud that held more artifacts than all the existing pieces in every museum combined. As soon as I learned about her, she’s who I wanted to be. While I did grow out of the wearing-her-clothes phase, I never stopped wearing my hair as she did and never will.”

  “Ah, gotcha,” he said. “Another piece of the Dakota puzzle falls into place.”

  “My hairstyle that much of a quandary for you?”

  Jack threw me an amused look. “No, but I assumed you were being practical and weren’t modeling yourself after your childhood hero. Did you dye it, too?”

  “No,” I said, slumping a little. “She was a redhead, so I didn’t go all out. I don’t like being fake. That’s why I never went the cyber upgrade route.”

  “Except for your arm,” he rightly pointed out.

  “Being able to manipulate spacetime trumped personal preference on that one,” I said.

  At that point, we reached a large set of sliding double doors. On one side, there was a plaque that read IL-965, and on the other, there was a console embedded into the wall. Not expecting much, I tapped the screen. It flickered to life, giving off a light blue glow and low buzzing noise as it did.

  “That’s promising,” Jack said. As I worked, he flatted his back against the wall and kept watch over our rear.

  I whipped through the menus, and after a few seconds, I made one last tap and watched in utter joy as not only did the entire area light up, but the doors to the exhibit slid open. “Negative,” I said with no small amount of boasting in my voice. “That is not promising. That is the power of the lucky elephant.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Exhibit of Bad Art

  When you get to be an intergalactic way famous xenoarchaeologist and a treasure hunter such as myself, you tend to see a lot of weird stuff. And I mean, weird. Okay, maybe I’m not intergalactically famous yet, keyword being yet, but I’ve definitely earned my spot in the upper echelon after all I’ve been through as of late. Even if one doesn’t count everything I saw at the Museum of Natural Time, I’ve stumbled upon finds and customs that would leave anyone but the most seasoned traveler baffled.

  This one time, I touched down on Nuntani Prime, a single planet orbiting a long-forgotten star in the Mu Quadrant, and came across a race of psilocybin-like creatures who were barely out of their Bronze Age.

  Right, I know what you’re thinking. Dakota, that’s not strange at all. Fair enough. But get a load of this: they loved making sofa mazes. And I mean loved. L-O-V-E-D. LOVED.

  It was freaking pathological.

  Enter a living room? Sofa maze.

  Stroll down a hall? Sofa maze.

  Need to get to the butterfly garden to enjoy some tea? That was at least three sofa mazes you’d need to get by.

  Stranger yet, they weren’t gigantic pieces of furniture either, or even ones stacked upon one another. That meant if you wanted, you could easily crawl across the top, but if you did that, you committed an unspeakable act of blasphemy in the eyes of their priests. If you did that, you’d better have immediate evac available—or a three-meter-tall best bud full of fang and claw at your side—otherwise, there was an extremely high risk that you were going to be the main course during the next ritual dinner of atonement.

  Weird, right?

  That’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of things I’ve seen.

  There was this one time when Tolby and I were chasing down lead to find the Star of Santar. If you’re not familiar with that, it was a priceless neckless that had been lost when it’s owner, Rebecca Freeman, wandered off into the jungles of Otta IV and never returned. Naturally, there were tons of conspiracy theories surrounding the events, some of which had nuggets of truth to them Tolby and I used to direct our expedition.

  Though we never found the necklace, we did uncover her final resting place. About three hundred kilometers south-southwest of our original starting point, we discovered a tiny wooden house that she’d built along the banks of a hidden pool, deep inside the jungle. As best we could tell, she lived the rest of her life there, whittling a plethora of cute, lobster-monkey figurines before dying at the ripe old age of eighty-something. Her personal bot, Stanley, buried her before shutting down.

  Anyway, that’s all backdrop to the weird part. The really weird part was her tiny house had no less than one hundred and fifty-three pictures of Magic Williams—you know, the fitness guru who was en
tirely too happy throughout all his workout videos to not be absolutely insane? The guy who’d break down in blubbering tears every time he caught wind of someone choosing not to eat that one extra nibble of chocolate? Yeah, that guy.

  Not only did she have over a gross of pictures of that weirdo, but those pictures were all arranged on the same wall, making a giant arch with some sort of incense burner and shrine in the middle that held a single inscription: I know why the waffles left.

  I’ll give you twenty cred on the spot if you figure that one out.

  Anyway, neither of those, nor anything else I’d ever seen, had prepared me for the amount of utter, total weird that was inside the exhibit we’d entered. I really should’ve paid more attention to the Kibnali soldiers’ remarks when we first arrived at the art gallery, because then maybe I wouldn’t have been so dumbfounded at all.

  “A glorious and mindful tribute to the worst art that has ever been created this side of the Eastern Universal ridgeline,” Jack said as he read from the top of a colorful brochure that he’d picked up a moment ago.

  As he spoke, my eyes remained locked on the first exhibit on our left. It was an array of small tools about the size of my arm, each one looking like a bizarre cross between a hedge trimmer and a can opener. Glued on their tops were several googly eyes, all different colors, and on their sides, somebody had stuck in wire arms that branched out into four-fingered hands. “An Ode to My Stomach,” I said, reading the plaque nearby.

  “What does that have to do with anyone’s stomach?” Jack asked.

  “Like I should know,” I replied, shaking my head.

  It only got worse from there. We hurried through the exhibit, trying to reach our goal as quickly as we could. Along the way we saw a myriad of…well, pardon my crudeness here, but crap. And no, I don’t mean actual feces, because I do know there have been “risqué” artists from time to time who try to work with the medium. I simply mean art that is beyond god-awful. Worse, it wasn’t the type of awful it actually turned out to be good, or was so bad it was fun to look at. All of it either led me to shake my head in disbelief or turn away with a cringe, completely embarrassed for whoever had created the work in question.

  A few dishonorable examples were as follows: about halfway through the exhibit, we came across an intestinal bouncy house castle. I think it was supposed to bring attention to an irritated bowel in a fun, nonconventional way, but all it did was make my stomach squeamish and make Jack gag a few times. A little before that, there were some poorly drawn stick figures in a cartoon that tried to discuss the moral complications of using tap water at night, which simply left me scratching my head. And last, and certainly not least, we came across an abstract painting that I thought had been made of charcoal at first, but it turned out to be made from the ashes of the artist’s left leg when he cut it off and burned it. Talk about gross.

  We also went by cubes of garbage, empty pedestals of wood, and some quote-unquote musical performance pieces that sounded about half as good as nails on a chalkboard. I wouldn’t call them dishonorable mentions, obviously, but they were good examples of what filled the place.

  The absolute winner, at least in terms of shock, was an empty stasis tube. It stood a little over two meters tall, with clear, rounded walls, and delicate machinery on both its top and bottom. Attached to its side was a small holographic projector that displayed an image of the monster we’d run into when we first got to this floor.

  “That thing was in here?” Jack said. “Why?”

  “Be the Discount. Be the Dragon. Let Your Birthday Sing,” I said, reading the info panel on the other side. “Okay, I have no idea. This has to be a joke. Right?”

  “I’m going out on a limb and saying ‘no,’” Jack said. “I mean, if this section is the worst of the worst when it comes to art, it makes sense that none of it makes sense.”

  “Yeah. I guess. But how did it get out?” I asked. “Or even better, why does this wing exist in the first place?”

  “Not following.”

  “What I mean is, if the art gallery was meant for the Progenitor staff, wouldn’t they want something…I don’t know, better to look at? Or at least more impressive than junk.”

  Jack shrugged. “True, but right now, I’m thinking a better use of our time would be getting that part and getting the hell out of here.”

  I couldn’t argue with him on that, and I knew the answer to my question could wait. We hurried over to the doors that led to the CDL. Not surprisingly, they were closed, but the console on the right was both powered on and helpful. Getting to it to open the doors turned out to be simple, too, which wasn’t surprising given I clearly had the power of both Taz and the lucky elephant to look out for me.

  With a friendly beep, the doors slid open. Before we could step through, Daphne’s voice cut through the line. “Dakota?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”

  I jumped with excitement. “Yes! What happened? Is everything okay back there?”

  “We’re fine for the moment, but I’m not sure how much longer that moment will last—Nodari invasion and all,” she said. “I cut communications when I realized we were being monitored. I didn’t want to reinitiate contact until I could be sure this line was secure.”

  “Monitored?” I echoed. Jack and I exchanged nervous looks. “By who?”

  “Not who. What,” she said. “AO’s facility counterpart, maybe? Or perhaps AO himself?”

  “Whatever it was, it must have let our friend back out,” Jack said. His hands nervously readjusted their grip on his weapon, and his eyes kept scanning the area.

  “Can’t be good, regardless,” I said.

  “Probably not,” Daphne said. “But there is a bright side.”

  Knowing Daphne, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “I seriously doubt that.”

  “That’s rude. You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

  “With you, your bright side rarely is.”

  “Well, Miss Frumpy Pants, I was going to say that I’ve calculated that due to the presence of this mysterious force, there’s a 98.9897 percent chance you’ll get some extra cardio in for the day. And you know what they say about extra cardio, don’t you? Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy, and happy people—”

  “Are not in our shoes,” I finished.

  “They could be,” she said. “It’s all about perspective. I bet if you were more grateful for what you have, you’d feel much better about all of this.”

  “I’d feel much better if none of this were happening, actually,” I said. “What makes you so sure about all this anyway?”

  “I hacked some of the facility’s monitors,” she said. “Remember those Nodari that were trying to ram their way in here?”

  “Yes…” I said. My face scrunched as I took in a sharp breath. “Are they headed here now?”

  “Haha. Don’t be silly. They’re still trying to get into the hangar.”

  I exhaled sharply, and my shoulders fell. “Oh, thank god.”

  “They do, however, have friends who are headed your way,” she said. “Depending on how long a few fire doors hold, they’ll be joining you between five and eight minutes.”

  I rubbed my hands together to expel some of my nerves. “Five to eight minutes, huh?” I said. “We’ll be long gone before that.”

  “You sure?” Jack asked.

  “Very,” I replied as I gestured to the open door. “Shall we?”

  Jack smiled. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Together, we zipped through the door and ran down a forty-meter-long hall with vaulted ceilings. Running along one side of the corridor were large bundles of conduits while on the other, small ventilation shafts had been placed about every three meters. Despite the relatively short distance that we went, by the time we reached the other end, I swear the temperature had dropped fifty degrees.

  “What is this place again?” I asked, teeth chattering. “The CDL, right? What’s that stand for?”

&nb
sp; “Nothing of importance,” Daphne said. “Just ignore it all and hit the first room on the left. I’m reading that the part we need is in bin 22-A. You can grab it and be back on your merry little way in no time.”

  The tip of my finger stopped a photon’s width away from the console to the final door. “Why are you talking like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like your hiding something.”

  “Not hiding anything at all. Only looking out for your well-being. And ours, too, for that matter.”

  My finger withdrew. My eyes darted to Jack who only threw up a shrug. “Daphne…”

  “I promised Tolby I wouldn’t say, and a promise is a promise.”

  I threw her a disbelieving snort. “Yeah, right. He’d never keep me in the dark.”

  “Unless what was in that lab was something that would…” Jack’s voice trailed.

  “Would what?”

  “Would make you be…well…you…”

  I cocked my head and bit my lower lip for a hot moment before their combined words took on some semblance of meaning. In a flash, I hammered the door controls, and it slid painfully slow to the side. Unwilling to wait the five seconds it probably would have taken for it to allow easy access, I rammed myself through the hole. I had no idea what they were keeping from me, but I knew it had to be awesome. Probably a wee bit dangerous, too, given their apprehension, but like that was going to stop me. Risk and I were on friendly terms, or at least, we had each other on speed dial.

  Anywho, once through the door, I found myself inside a massive octagonal room. Along each wall were three doorways, twenty-four in total, each one leading into a considerably smaller area that looked like some sort of testing lab. At the center of the room stood a giant, mechanical spire. It jutted out of the floor and reached all the way to the ceiling, some four stories up. At least a hundred thick bundles of cables shot out of its sides, some running along the walls while others clung to the ceiling. Several monitors had been placed on it as well, most surrounded by a myriad of controls I knew I’d have no hope of learning. All of them, save one, were dark.